1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to broadcast program recording and playing apparatuses and to portable terminals for recording and playing broadcast programs. More particularly, the present invention relates to a broadcast program recording and playing apparatus and to a portable terminal for recording and playing broadcast programs in which, on the premise that program information transmitted by the Internet or digital broadcasting is stored beforehand in a database and hence the program information is extractable, the program information is displayed on the portable terminal for each individual, and an audiovisual apparatus is controlled in accordance with the displayed information, thereby selectively playing and programming program recording by selecting the title of a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
An environment in which program recording can be set up using an electronic program guide (EPG) on the Internet has been developed. For example, an iEPG (internet EPG) system is proposed by the same applicant as the present invention. The iEPG system is developed for a recording system referred to as Giga Pocket (trademark of Sony Corporation), which sets up program recording using a program guide site on the Internet. The iEPG system is offered as an Internet TV guide. In this recording system, a user browses a list of programs and selects a recording button of a program that the user wants to set up for recording, thereby downloading a text file in which the broadcast station name, program title, start time, and end time are described. In this system, program recording is set up based on various downloaded data. As a result, recordings can be set up only by on-screen operations on the Web.
Also, there are other products, such as a personal television “Replay TV” and a personal video recorder (PVR) as typified by TiVo, Inc., which can automatically set up recordings using program information based on personal preferences. What Replay TV offers is one service referred to as personal television. Using Replay TV, a user can record a currently-broadcast television program to the user's hard disk drive (HDD) in real time, and, while watching the program, the user can pause and rewind the program. Also, the user can get a program guide and select favorite programs according to actor, theme, and the like. Hence, the user can collect favorite programs into a personal channel on the HDD.
Although the service offered by PVRs is similar to that using video cassette recorders (VCRs), PVRs are advantageous to VCRs in that PVRs can record programs for hours using a large-capacity hard disk instead of a tape. Since real-time program recording can be performed by a PVR, a PVR user can skip commercials and enjoy the program using pause and rewind functions. Also, the PVR user can select dozens of programs to set up for recording.
Although the above-described service based on the Internet TV guide only enables a user to set up recordings and to download program information, the service does not enable the user to extract program information based on user's personal preferences. In light of extraction of program information based on the user's personal preferences, conventional recordings by VCRs and the above-described recordings based on the Internet TV guide only differ in that the former uses a remote control and that the latter uses a personal computer (PC) to set up recording. In essence, neither recording system can set up recordings unless the user intends to set up recordings. In the future era of digital broadcasting and multiple channels, the user may miss more and more programs unless careful attention is given to program information.
Although the service using Replay TV and PVRs enables each user to set up recordings based on the user's personal preferences, the centralized management of a plurality of individuals' program information cannot be performed because each apparatus is independent.